I think what's important about the UN internal inquiry report is the preamble, which puts the conflict in the context of 9/11 and the global war on terror. I think that whole labelling of the LTTE as terrorists, and you can argue about that.... But I think the fact that the war was positioned as a war on terror—and the Sri Lankan government still does that, they talk about the “terrorists” still—made it very complicated and very difficult for the UN in engaging with them.
Perhaps the UN got a lot of the blame; obviously, many of the member states supported the elimination of the LTTE, too, it looks like. The problem is that, somehow, nobody had a plan for after the war. I don't think anybody reckoned on the extent of civilian casualties being quite as grave as it was.
At the end of the war, there was a lot of talk about devolution-of-power packages, but it has become apparent that the Sri Lankan government has absolutely no interest in that. The failure to hold them accountable for these appalling crimes has led to ongoing crimes, and perhaps ongoing crimes against humanity in terms of the scale of rape.
I don't know if that answers your question. I mean, what more could the UN do? I think it needs to take more notice of its staff on the ground. It was problematic that it withdrew from rebel areas when the ICRC didn't. It could have stayed on in more of a witness capacity.
From what many UN people say, the decisions were made in New York, not in Sri Lanka, and clearly the Sri Lankan government bullied and intimidated the local agency heads. They selected people they thought had less human rights knowledge and experience and less conflict experience, so they could bully them. They bugged all their computers and telephones. I think they harassed them to the nth degree, so that it became very difficult for them to operate. But it needed very strong leadership in Colombo to champion those organizations, and that wasn't apparent.